"A Humble Servant's Catholic Blog"

I had been asked about possible quotes regarding the use of relics and icons in the early Church, and found Brian Showalter's blog site by chance.   He has spent thousands of hours researching tens of thousands of pages of the writings of the Early Church Fathers on a variety of topics.  In his research he has continued to find that the Church has always been Catholic.    Brian graciously gave me permission to post his work here for reference.  His original, along with many other topics, can be found at his blog, Practical Apologetics .    Here are many of the early Church writings regarding relics and icons: Marytrdom of St Ignatius of Antioch ch 6 (50-117 ad) For only the harder portions of his holy remains were left, which were conveyed to Antioch and wrapped in linen, as an inestimable treasure left to the holy Church by the grace which was in the martyr Polycarp Martyrdom of Polycarp Ch 18 (69-155 ad) Accordingly, we afterwards took up hi...

A friend of mine once posted a video blog about society setting up role models for itself (sports figures, war heroes, etc.). He spoke about how much he appreciated, during points in his life as he struggled with faith and morality, having a particularly awesome role model; the Mother of Jesus Christ. He spoke of being able to look up to her and follow her example of saying "yes" to God, no matter what the neighbors would say [of her seemingly untimely pregnancy], or no matter the hurt she would feel [when her Son was given up on the cross]. He recounted the great instructions she left all of humanity when she said, "Do whatever He tells you". And he mentioned how great it is to have such a great role model in whom we find no moral faults such as drug or porn addiction, spouse abuse, adultery, or other moral faults to which so many of our role models fall prey. And somewhere in the comments, he mentioned how great it is to ask such a great role model to pray for ...

A person once wrote to a friend of mine, " I've never been too keen on the whole 'God values suffering' bit. He knows we are suffering, but God provided salvation through his Son because God wanted man to live in paradise. Jesus bought all of mankind from death. If you have died, regardless of faith or not, you will receive your resurrection through Christ and His judgement. And, if you live like we are told to through Jesus, there should be no suffering...only a wrong attitude . " This was in response to my friend asking, " Why do we suffer? Didn't Jesus suffer for us so that we don't have to? Are we called to suffer? Does God value our suffering? How do I explain to someone the benefits of suffering other than just saying ' offer it up '?" " There were a couple things in the person's response that were off base (i.e. "If you have died, regardless of faith or not..."), but I chalked it up to a possible ...

The Western rite of the Church, for centuries, has traditionally selected candidates for the Priesthood only from among those men who have chosen to remain celibate for the sake of the Kingdom. As with most things, there are exceptions to this.  Yet, it is certainly the norm.  It's also worth noting that the celibate Priesthood is only a discipline, not a doctrine of the Church.  It could change at any moment, though it isn't likely. Even in the Eastern Rite of the Church, where married men are allowed to be Priests, they may not marry if they were single when they became a Priest, nor can they remarry if widowed. Over the years there have been arguments from different directions regarding this Priestly celibacy. From “ priests can’t relate to family life ” to “ single men need a sexual outlet, and that’s why sex abuse happened in the Church ” , to “ it’s not fair/Christian to deny a man the right to Marriage " , the reasons for allowing Catholic Priests to marry co...

Randy Alcorn wrote a 466-page book back in 2010 that magnificently presents the Pro-Life position in response to Pro-Abortion/Pro-Choice proponents in their support of abortion. I recommend the book, which can be purchased HERE , but even just his Table of Contents is worth taking a look at. In fact, when I first saw the Table of Contents, I thought it was point-by-point article that he had written. All that was lacking in it was primary source material. I later found out what I was looking at, and I just had to share it. So, here it is. It's divided into 6 parts, plus a summary, which makes it easy to hunt for any particular argument and find a response to it. Part 1 - Life, Humanity, and Personhood Part 2 - Rights and Fairness Part 3 - Social Issues Part 4 - Health and Safety Part 5 - Hard Cases Part 6 - Personal Character of Pro-Lifers Summary - A Better Place to Live? Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments By Randy Alcorn Table of Contents Part One: Argum...